Primary Valor, Jack Mars [black female authors .txt] 📗

Morris negotiated with the higher-upswhat kind of agency the SRT would be, what its expertise was, and how itsfuture would unfold. It seemed that at the moment, the SRT had been sidelined.

Luke had been going a little bitcrazy. He’d told Don from the beginning that he wouldn’t be the type of agentwho wore a shirt and tie to work every day, sat at a desk, made phone calls,and filed reports. But that’s what he had been doing.

One day a while back, he got apostcard in the mail. It had been mailed two weeks before, from Cape Town,South Africa. It had a picture of fancy modern houses built onto amountainside, sloping steeply downward toward the dark blue ocean, just as thesun was setting and night was coming in.

It said, Cape Town: mostbeautiful city in the world.

On the other side, there was abrief note, in a blocky handwritten scrawl. Beautiful continent. Friendlypeople. Endless opportunity. YOU should be here.

It was unsigned, but Luke didn’thave to think very hard to guess who had sent it. The mercurial Kevin Murphy,former Delta operator, former SRT agent, hell in a gunfight. He and Murphy hadnever been friends, but they had a rough sort of respect for one another. Itwasn’t clear what “endless opportunity” was supposed to mean, but what itcertainly didn’t mean was boredom. If Luke weren’t married, if he didn’t have achild, he would be sorely tempted to join Murphy on his adventures.

“Becca said you were in New Jerseyon Friday,” Audrey said now. “A training with the Drug Enforcement Agency, wasit?”

Here came the lies. The lies werebad enough on their own. When Audrey forced them into existence, it was alwayssomehow worse.

“Oh, I was there with Alcohol,Tobacco, and Firearms. Not DEA. It was at an outdoor facility in the woodsnorth and west of Paterson. My partner Ed and I were guests brought in to do anassessment of…”

“Were you at the drug raid on thehouse in Newark?”

Luke shook his head and looked outat the deep blue of the bay.

“No. We heard about it. People inthe ATF were talking. It’s a…”

“It’s a shame,” Lance said. “Ayoung boy like that getting killed by the police.”

“We saw it on the TV news,” Audreysaid. “They said one of the officers was shot as well, though his identity waskept a secret. The secrecy made us think of you. We were wondering if you werethere.”

She eyed Luke closely.

“No,” Luke said. “And I’m glad Iwasn’t.”

“It’s always a tragedy when aninnocent life is taken,” Audrey said.

CHAPTER SIX

March 27, 2006

10:05 a.m. Eastern Standard Time

The Headquarters of the FBI Special Response Team

McLean, Virginia

 

 

“I’ll admit I don’t get thisoperation,” Mark Swann said. “A missing persons case doesn’t seem very SRT. Notto be uncouth here, but it is just one girl.”

Luke glanced down the conferencetable at Swann. Luke often didn’t know what to make of Swann. The guy wasclearly super smart, but sometimes his mouth ran far out ahead of his brain.

Swann looked at Luke. “Usually we’resaving the world around here, aren’t we?”

Swann was tall and thin, wearing ablack T-shirt with the logo of the old punk rock band The Ramones. The logo wasmade to look like the Seal of the President of the United States. He waswearing a pair of yellow-tinted wraparound aviator sunglasses, and his longhair was pulled back into a ponytail.

There were exactly five people inthe conference room. Swann, Luke, Ed Newsam, Trudy Wellington, and the manhimself, Don Morris.

“Swann,” Don Morris said. Don wasdressed in a blue dress shirt, sleeves rolled up to his thick forearms. Don’seyes were like those of a tiger, something that hunted weaker animals for aliving. And those eyes were focused on Mark Swann.

“What would you say is your jobwith the Special Response Team?”

Swann shrugged. “I’d say I’m atech guy. Communications. Data acquisition, you might say. I’ve heard somepeople call it spying.”

Don nodded. “That sounds right tome. And you’re pretty good at that. Now what would you say is my job?”

Swann smiled and shook his head. “I’dsay you’re the boss.”

Don pointed at him. “Exactlyright. And what types of things do you suppose that includes?”

“Hiring and deploying personnel,”Swann said. “Setting policy.”

Don was grinning now. “Yes,indeed. What else?”

“Uh… choosing missions?”

“Beautiful,” Don said. “So let’sdo this, okay? I will do my job, and you do yours.”

Swann nodded. “Good idea.”

“The truth is,” Don said, “thisisn’t technically an SRT mission. That’s why there’s just a few of us here. Andfor now, what we will discuss is for the eyes and ears of the people in thisroom only. We are doing a favor for some people I know, very likely a small favorbecause others are already working on the problem. Consider it a good deed. Soif Swann has no more objections…”

He looked Swann’s way.

Swann shook his head.

“Then I will ask Trudy to beginagain.”

Trudy nodded, eyes owlish behindher red glasses.

She began. “As you know, thisweekend Don asked me to look into a missing person case in North Carolina. I’vespent several hours on it last night and this morning, contacting a few peoplewith knowledge of the situation. I also had the assistance of Swann, who got mesome details that haven’t exactly been made public yet.”

Swann nodded. “Reports filed in alocal police database. Information in a high school database. Medical reportsat a local hospital. A few other things. Child’s play. I was doing stuff likethat when I was a kid.”

“In any event, here’s what we cameup with,” Trudy said. “This past Thursday night, there appears to have been anabduction of a girl from Wilmington, a small coastal city in the southeastcorner of the state. Charlotte Richmond, a sixteen-year-old, appears to haveslipped out of her house, apparently while her mother and her mother’sboyfriend were asleep. She is an only child, and there is thought to have beenno one else in the house at the time.

“The girl attended a party at anoceanfront home in nearby Wrightsville Beach. There were about a dozen peopleat the party, mostly underage high school kids, and alcohol was served there. Someindividuals were also smoking pot. The party was hosted by eighteen-year-oldTaylor Seifert, whose parents were out of the country